Karl's Reading List

Published by John Murray (Publishers): London, 2003 (1975). I'm trying to be a bit more picky with my Booker books these days, while still aiming to get through the ones that aren't too explicit.  Heat and Dust tells two stories: the first is of Olivia, the young wife of Douglas Rivers, an English civil servant living in Satipur, India in the 1920s. Although the couple are very loving towards one another, Olivia feels isolated, unable to relate to the other (older) local British women and unable to mix much with the local English men who, because of her gender, choose not to explain the politics of the area to her. She befriends Harry, another Englishman, who is living in the palace of the local Nawab (a prince), and whom the novel implies he is in a very controlling homosexual relationship with. As time goes by Olivia is drawn more and more to the Nawab, and eventually she begins her own relationship with him, resulting eventually in her decision to elope with him. This is not...

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Ltd.: New York, NY, 2010. Book 1 in 'The Stormlight Archives' series. Followed by ' Words of Radiance. '  Having discovered Brandon Sanderson last year through the Mistborn series, I was looking forward to trying a different series altogether. The Stormlight Archives is a far larger and more intricate beast, with this first book being 1001 pages long and having numerous characters with point-of-view chapters. It also takes a little bit more time setting up the world than Mistborn did, meaning that it takes a little while to get into the flow of the story. This is particularly noticeable in the first few chapters, with the prologue starting thousands of years earlier than the main events of the book, the next chapter telling an event that - though important - is also a few years than the main point, the next chapter giving the viewpoint of a character that dies during important events that are also a year before the main plot, and th...

Published as an audiobook by Podium Audio, uploaded 21-07-2020. First published 2015. Narrated by Tracey Llewelyn. This free audiobook caught my eye when I was browsing Audible, probably partially because it's series title is " The Old Curiosity Shop ", which ties to my love of Dickens (a link that even the characters acknowledge). In this book, the first of that series, we follow Sarah Lester, who has become the owner/operator of the second-hand store 'The Old Curiosity Shop' following the mysterious disappearances of both of her parents. Sorting through a pile of postcards, Sarah suddenly finds herself transported back in time, taking on the identity of a maid in the home of Lord Grey. Just as she getting used to this life she ends up back in the present, only to later 'lump' into another life, then another and another...  It's an interesting premise, and Sarah is an interesting protagonist in that she knows a lot about historical artifacts (it comes...

Published by Wordsworth Editions Limited: Hertfordshire, England, 1992. First published in 1847. This is my first time reading anything by one of the Brontë sisters, and whoa, its fairly intense! I thought I knew a bit of the plot, but upon reflection I think I might have been thinking of Jane Eyre instead. In this story, we meet Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, two siblings living in the titular Wuthering Heights, a remote farmhouse in West Yorkshire. At a young age a third child joins their household, 'Heathcliff', a child found by Mr Earnshaw and brought home to be raised with the family. Heathcliff and Catherine are close, and it becomes more and more apparent that Heathcliff is in love with Catherine. These two wander the moors together, and when spying on their neighbours at Thrushcross Grange, Catherine is attacked by the family's dogs and is forced to recover there. This causes an attachment to grow between her and Edgar Linton, the son in the Thrushcross Grange hous...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group, Inc.: New York, NY, 2009 (2008). Book Seven of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; ' The Ashes of Worlds '. Aaaand, this is it! The final book in the Saga of the Seven Suns! Wow...  The majority of this book is devoted to paying off the various character arcs that remain and finishing off the various villains that still live. By the end we have happy endings for pretty much every surviving protagonist, and the galaxy is safe from every single threat that still remained at the beginning of the book. Some of the plot threads wrap up in ways that are a bit unexpected, but overall this is a book that is simply powering towards its ending. Characters do some odd things in order to be where the author needs them to be, either to further the plot or to be killed off (...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group, Inc.: New York, NY, 2008 (2007). Book Six of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; 'The Ashes of Worlds'. In some ways I think The Saga of the Seven Suns might have been better wrapping up in the last entry. Of Fire and Night finished the hydrogue war and had King Peter and Queen Estarra finally escape from under Basil Wenceslas' control to the forest planet of Theroc. But the big twist at the end of the last book was the return of the insect-like Klikiss - the ancient race believed to be extinct - and now they have a massive presence in this book. So, where things were just wrapping up, now we have a new villain to face. At the same time, the insane brother of Jora'h, Rusa'h (who had flown directly into a star in Scattered Suns ) has also returned,...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group, Inc.: New York, NY, 2007 (2006). Book Five of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; ' The Ashes of Worlds '. After the last two installments in this series seemed a little unfocussed, Of Fire and Night course-corrects by bringing pay-off to a number of long-running subplots. Where Horizon Storms and Scattered Suns both technically contained the start of the Klikiss robot uprising, Of Fire and Night brings that war out into the open. Not only does the Hansa league become aware of the robotic treachery, but they begin having to figure out how to do battle against them. The hydrogue war also reaches its peak; with the Ildirian empire forced into a difficult corner, being asked to join the hydrogues or face annihilation themselves, Jora'h sides with the hydrogues...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group, Inc.: New York, NY, 2007 (2005). Book Four of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; 'The Ashes of Worlds'. By now I'm guessing you know there are spoilers for earlier in the series. About halfway through this book I took a break from the story and had a look at a section in the back called 'meet the author'. Within it Kevin J Anderson admits that originally this book and book 3, the previous installment , were intended to be one entry in the series. However, as he was writing the draft the story grew enough that he ended up splitting it in two, which also allowed him to explore a few extra plotlines he would have otherwise trimmed. This extra information helped me to make sense of the pacing of this book, as well as Horizon Storms before it. Basically...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group, Inc.: New York, NY, 2007 (2004). Book Three of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; ' The Ashes of Worlds '. Spoilers for the first two books. Horizon Storms continues the story set up in the previous installments, with this one feeling perhaps a little more action-packed, now that the set-up has finished for many of the subplots. Particularly, the Klikiss robot subplot finally kicks into gear, with the robots beginning to turn against both the human and Ildiran races. Jora'h gets a lot of focus in this installment as he steps into the role of Mage-Imperator, realising how much of his father's scheming he needs to continue (reluctantly) while also seeking to change many of the long-standing Ildiran traditions, almost as a reaction against his father'...

Published by Thomas Nelson/HarperCollins Publishers: Nashville, Tennessee, 2017. Looking for a letter 'P' for the Alphabet Soup Challenge , I picked this book up in the library having no idea what it was about at all or who the author was. Learning from the cover that it had something to do with a terrorist attack that happened in France as well as some letters written by a Huguenot during the Reformation, I decided to give it a go. As I was walking to the counter I browsed the front and started seeing quotes that implied this might be a Christian book. It's quite unique. The main character Jessica and one of her two flatmates in Paris, Vonda, decide to attend a concert and are caught up in the mass shootings that took place in the Bataclan theatre in November 2015 . A third flatmate, Patrick, visits Jessica in the hospital when she is recovering from her wounds and tries to convince her to continue on with a planned trip to various antique stores around France rather than ...

Audiobook published by Audible, 2014 (20-08-2007). Narrated by Michael Hordern. Originally published 1908. Like Peter Pan before it, this is a classic book that I've heard of on many occasions, but have discovered in the reading that it is far stranger than I realised, yet still charming. The book tells the adventures of Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger, four animals living in rough proximity to 'the River'. These animals - for reasons never explained other than 'its a children's story' - act very much like humans: they wear clothing, eat human food, live in houses (even if those houses are mostly in burrow entrances), and even occasionally have pets of their own! Yet it is not a world fully populated by anthropomorphic animals - humans also inhabit the world and generally interact with the animal protagonists as equals.  Mole is our first primary protagonist, arriving at the River from his own former home after becoming bored with his life. Through his eyes - and hi...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group: New York, NY, 2007 (2003). Book Two of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; ' The Ashes of Worlds '. Spoilers for parts of Hidden Empire will follow. The second installment of The Saga of Seven Suns picks up five years after Hidden Empire ended. Both the human race and the Ildirans are under attack from the deadly and mysterious hydrogues, aliens that living in the centre of gas giant planets. The antagonists are able to survive at immense pressures un-survivable to their enemies, and their superior technology is making the ongoing conflict less of a war and more of an extermination. Humanity, broken into three distinct factions, are doing their best to survive the conflict however they can, but the main empire - the Hansatic league, led by Chairman Basil Wence...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group: New York, NY, 2007 (2003). Book One of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; ' The Ashes of Worlds '. Last week I was returning a book to my local library and saw a flyer for something called the 'Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge.' A fairly straight-forward challenge running through until 30 June 2022, that challenges you to read 26 books, each by an author whose surname starts with a different letter of the alphabet. There is no major prize, although after every fifth book you can claim a small prize from the library. It's really just an excuse to read more books. As if I need excuses to read. Anyway, I decided to have a go, and have also decided I'll try and read my books for this in alphabetical order (not a requirement of the competition). So a...

Published by Arrow Books: London, 2018 (2017). This collection of short stories, published to celebrate 40 years since the release of A New Hope (aka the original Star Wars movie) retells scenes from that movie from the perspective of 40 minor (or greater canon) characters from the film itself. Story perspectives include those of more well-known figures such as Greedo, Obi-Wan, and even Yoda, Lando and the force-ghost of Qui-Gonn, as well as far more obscure ones, such as one of the Jawas, members of the Cantina Band, and the trash-monster from the Death Star. Each story is told by a different author or authors, and therefore the stories range in genre from comedic to dramatic, to a parody of Shakespeare (the latter being the contribution of Ian Doescher, who has also produced full-length parody 'plays' of Stars Wars in Shakespearean form elsewhere ). It would take too long to review each of the 40 stories, but as with any short story collection, some are good, and others are j...

Published by Virago Press: London, England, 2001 (2000). The Blind Assassin is not one narrative, but three interwoven ones. There is the “main” narrative, in which Iris Chase reflects on her life, particularly her young life growing up with her sister Laura. In this narrative we are immediately informed that Laura will eventually die in a car crash, and the majority of the story is filling the reader in on just what led up to that event.  Laura has had a book published posthumously, and this book (also titled The Blind Assassin ) is told in excerpts, making up the second narrative. In this narrative a nameless man and a nameless woman carry on a secret affair, while the man continually moves locations to avoid discovery, and creates stories to tell the woman. The first of these stories is a pulpy fantasy, in which a main character is a blind assassin, finally giving the novel’s title some context, and making up the third narrative. As the novel unfolds, these three narratives...